


I'll tuck you in

by Clownbox (orphan_account)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Champions (Comics), Ghost Rider (Comics), Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gabe & Ammy, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 14:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18284420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Clownbox
Summary: Robbie's asleep and Gabe is having nightmares. He knows who the ghost rider is, and that isn't much of a comfort.





	I'll tuck you in

**Author's Note:**

> technically, this could be set after the events of toblerone, but really, it's w/e. not everything has to be on the same verse keep it fresh  
> THANK YOU Timmertams tami love for beta and making this more coherent than the mess it was at the start, specially because i have abused of your free services  
> Gabe is baby

There are few things in life more nerve-wracking than having to use the bathroom in a house that isn't your own at odd hours of the night. You can't make any noise, for starters. Switching the lights on is completely off the picture. Even your footsteps have to be cold, calculated, placed one at a time as the walls orient the way into the darkness.

Amadeus knew he had fucked up somewhere along the course when, upon closing the door on his way back from a midnight leak, he heard a small, shaky voice come from the room just in the middle of the hallway. The one he had just walked by a few minutes before.  _ Gabe's room _ , his mind offered. 

“ _ Robbie _ ?” 

_ Great _ , he thought,  _ when you finally manage to sleep in you mess up the kid's sleep schedule. Just peachy! _

_ “ _ _ —  _ _ I had a bad dream...”  _ Gabe sniffled, lacking the courage he had during the day, where not even horror stories could keep him at bay. “ _ Is that you _ ?” His voice faltered, breaking a little louder.

Now, Amadeus isn't a cold creature made of stone. He couldn't exactly lie either. He quickly came to terms with the fact that he couldn’t walk back into his room and call it a night, not after this. 

“Robbie’s asleep, it’s just me this time,” Amadeus said, peeking into the room. Gabe slept with his door open and one night light on at all times, with windows closed. Judging by how dark it was inside, his little hedgehog night light didn’t seem to be working. “Want me to bring you some water, lil’ man?”

“N-no, thank you.” It was a little hard to see into the room, but he captured Gabe’s shadow shuffling in a movement that could be described as dabbing tears out of your face.

“Hey come on, what’s that all about? Want me to take a look at Sonic over there?” He stepped in further, daring enough to abandon his little comfort zone. “If you keep crying I’m gonna end up weepy too and then the two of us are going to flood this wholeass room till the water is coming outta the _—_ _uh oh_. Don’t tell Robbie I said _ass_.”

“Robbie lets me say  _ ass. _ ” Gabe sniffled, but there was a hint of a smile to his face. 

“Oh, right, _ fucking _ is the bad word adjacent,” he pretended to suddenly remember, which prompted a gasp and muffled chuckling from his sulky little friend. “I'm going to put a coin on the swear jar, you don't gotta remind me. Let's get you back to sleep, alright?”

Amadeus grabbed the tips of his heavy blanket, stretching it a bit in the air before letting it gracefully fall around Gabe's shoulders, who still had a frown on his face. Amadeus couldn’t have that. With a  _ tsk,  _ he reached out tentatively to pat Gabe’s head. As much as it was hard to admit, he hadn't accumulated experience with dealing with the little ones. He had only needed to comfort Maddy when she scraped her knees or got called the bad names, but that was when she was twelve and him fifteen. It was like traversing a minefield. Maddy liked to throw her popsicle sticks at him for snooping into her business when they were kids. If she was like that, who knew what Gabe was capable of?

“You wanna talk about that nightmare?” Amadeus asked, hand still on Gabe’s head. Gabe's chin wrinkled as he retracted his lips in an over dramatic display, and he seemed to be considering it for a second, before mouthing off, “No.”

“Are you sure? I can't sit here all night until you make a decision. I'd just go back to Robbie's room and then I’d fall asleep and not even a pack of horses will be able to wake me up.” 

The pair of little caramel eyes stood unimpressed, still just staring at him.

Amadeus shrugged, getting up and stretching his arms behind his back, taking a few slow steps towards the door,  just to give Gabe more time to think about it before he moonwalked into oblivion. It was only when he reached the doorframe that Gabe grew agitated.

“I dreamed Robbie died,” his tiny voice blurted out.

Amadeus stopped on his tracks. “ _What? Lil’_ _Buddy,_ I can assure you that's compl _—_ ”

“I know he's the ghost rider! You don't have to keep  _ lying _ to me!” He spoke harshly, but he didn't look furious. More like indignant, words tumbling out in rushed outbursts. “And he never tells me  _ anything.” _

“Oh,” Amadeus said, swallowing dry. And, with more property and moderate fear:  _ “Oh.” _

It was like witnessing a trainwreck. Gabe was tearing up again, while Amadeus took a seat to calculate  the best course of action to deal with a situation involving a secret that wasn't his to begin with, while not too far in the same house Robbie slept peacefully, snoring with not a care in the world. Amadeus rubbed his face, sighing,and decided to climb under the covers.

“Okay, nevermind the sleeping bit. For me, at least. C'mere, lay down,” Amadeus patted the pillow, curled on the edge of the single bed. It was still about three in the morning, he had a license to be groggy. Gabe complied, nudging closer. “How long has all this…  _ you know.” _

Gabe breathed with heavy sounds, like he had to filter the air twice. “Robbie said he'd get a new job, a  _ better _ job, and then _ — _ then  _ he's _ on TV!  _ Leyenda _ is not  _ around  _ anymore, and he's got a new stark phone, and he can talk to  _ Tony Stark,  _ and I get to go to a cool new school on the afternoon thanks to  _ Black Panther, _ and _ — _ and  _ you.”  _ He sucked in some snot and Amadeus remained unflinching, rubbing little circles on his chest. “He told me… he said he was fixing cars for Tony Stark and  _ that was sooooo awesome!  _ but… he's  _ not... _ that's not it. Why would Iron Man need one of  _ us _ to fix things for him? He's supposed to be smart…” He pouted. 

“ _ Supposed to, _ doesn't mean he is.” Amadeus snorted at the thought. “On another hand, your brother? He's a smart guy.” 

“Robbie can't do that  _ thing _ you do!” 

“Neither can  _ Tony Stark! _ Look, I'm just saying, he knows how to do a lot of stuff. Like paperwork stuff. And he's more than skilled enough to hold on his own checking for vehicle damage. Iron Man can't be around all the time to do everything. I mean gee, he can hardly solve his own _ —” _

Gabe squinted at him, as if daring him to come up with an elaborate excuse. His brother just so happened to work with the Avengers, who currently had the ghost rider on their roster,  _ while driving the same car the ghost rider does, _ and accidentally  _ never being on the same place the ghost rider was _ at any time. And he was supposed to make sense of that? It was ridiculous all around and Amadeus wasn't exactly known for coming up with convincing lies past midnight. 

He sighed, then rubbed his face in shame. “Fine. Fine. God, you both do this thing with... Listen, you're right, and it's not my job to trick you.”

“You don't  _ have _ a job!”

“Hey! Pro-bono for the good of humanity! But that's not the discussion here, focus. Your brother can kick some real ass, you know? You ever seen him with a bruise?”

“But he... got banged up sometimes… he hid some gross bloody shirts in the laundry then...” 

_ Bite thy tongue, _ Amadeus Cho. 

Then try again. 

“Nothing really,  _ really _ bad is happening to him, I promise. I wouldn't let that happen. He's safe.”

“But what if a really big monster comes through the sky again and  _ steps on him?  _ Or, or... if they call a  _ priest who’s also a supervillain!  _ If… Captain America slips on his shield and it flies and...” 

“Gabe.” 

“And there's gonna be a buncha loose parts of him  _ everywhere and I'm going to be all alone and you can’t hide me forever and the child taking guys will _ _ — _ _ ” _

He had completely lost track of the conversation, gesturing on Amadeus’ chest like it was a whiteboard and quietly ranting, with all the fire he carried on his little body, about all the terrible ways this could go wrong, “like on the cartoons”. Like how the Avengers were once kidnapped by a time-travelling guy on a bunnysuit and he killed Wolverine (again) using a special knife from a dream dimension. Did you know that was a thing? He read all about it in the comics.

Amadeus tried shushing him by just letting him get tired, drowning the incomprehensible scenarios with whispers and back-pats. 

“If, and only if, something as wild as you're describing happens in the near future, and I hear about it, I'm not letting anything bad get to you, or to  _ him _ , is that better now?” 

“But what if you're not  _ there?” _ Gabe mumbled in response.

“ _ God, _ ” he laughed in a knee jerk reaction, wondering how he had gotten himself in that tight spot. “I don't care if I'm not  _ there.  _ I'll hear about it, and then I'll bring him back for you so you can see I’m not a complete liar. From hell, if I have to. Or Tartarus or  _ the Void _ or  _ Muspelheim  _ or whatever, take your pick. I promise right now.” 

“You promise me?”

“I do.”

Gabe considered his answer, probably wondering if he was even able to pull of such a feat, and Amadeus could almost see the machinery working overtime on his little head to point out anything he might've been slightly unsure about. The kid was brilliant when it came to being positive, and the inverse was also true, even if he didn't let it out often. He was  _ brilliant, _ in general. 

“What happens if you don't?” he said, looking for one more affirmation, for posterity or god knows what. 

“Highly improbable that I won't, I'll have you know I don't give up that easily. In the unrealistic scenario where I’m a _chicken,_ I believe you'll hunt me and scorch me up to the ends of the earth with your latent ghost powers or something equally as wild-cardy until I pay my side of the bargain, because that's just how you work.”

“You think I can do that?”

“I think you already have.”

Gabe smiled, satisfied with himself, so proud and confident, Amadeus heard his heartbeat go up and warmth blossom on his small chest, and he knew that to be true. 

“Now that  _ that _ is settled, you still need to sleep to function like a person tomorrow, so.” He wiggled off the edge of the bed and it bounced back content for not having to hold his weight anymore, almost speaking by the way it creaked. 

He heard Gabe wish him a quiet goodnight again, but while he reached to give his hedgehog light a few wake-up slaps, he heard the tablefloors resounding with rushed steps, and irregular breathing. 

“So, the bad news: Sonic's dead, may he run in heaven.” He tossed the light into the nearest toy pile, discarded. “The good news: you're sleeping with us tonight, so your brother can't say I’m irresponsible.” 

Gabe _squeaked,_ arms raised high, and grabbed Amadeus’ shoulders tight when he was picked up, relishing being the tallest he had ever been. 

Amadeus pretended to believe Robbie when he said he had  _ just woken up _ with all their noise, rubbing his eyes for believable points. He was pushed to the middle of the bed and mercilessly piled upon, Gabe latching onto his left side like a baby octopus and Amadeus flanking his right with a bulky arm draped over his chest, as if both were making sure Robbie really wasn't going anywhere. 

He didn't, not anymore while being overwhelmed in attention like so.

He had kinda hoped to sneak into the bathroom earlier though. 


End file.
